Opportunity Attacks 5e: Reach, Movement, and Reactions
I like opportunity attacks because one reaction can make movement feel genuinely dangerous. They are also easy to overapply: moving near an enemy is not enough, forced movement usually does not qualify, and every creature has only one reaction to spend. This guide keeps the timing straight under the 2014 rules.
Opportunity Attacks 5e: Quick Answer
Under the 2014 rules, a hostile creature you can see provokes an opportunity attack when it uses qualifying movement to leave your reach. You spend your reaction to make one melee attack, and that attack resolves immediately before the creature leaves your reach.
The movement does not provoke if the creature Disengages, teleports, or is moved without using its own movement, action, or reaction.
How an Opportunity Attack Works in the 2014 Rules
Resolve an opportunity attack in this order:
- A hostile creature that you can see begins to leave your reach.
- Check whether it used its movement, action, or reaction to move. If something else moved it without using any of those, it does not provoke.
- Check for Disengage or another feature that prevents opportunity attacks.
- Decide whether to spend your reaction. You can decline.
- Make one melee attack against the creature immediately before it leaves your reach.
The attack can hit and damage the creature, but a normal hit does not cancel its movement. A feature such as the Sentinel feat can change that result.
What Movement Provokes an Opportunity Attack?
Walking, climbing, swimming, or flying out of an enemy’s reach can provoke because the creature is using one of its speeds. Movement produced by an action or reaction can also provoke when the effect makes the creature use that action or reaction to move.
For example, dissonant whispers can make a target use its reaction to move. The official Sage Advice Compendium confirms that this movement can provoke. By contrast, a shove, an explosion, gust of wind, or another effect that physically moves a creature without spending its movement, action, or reaction does not normally provoke.
This distinction is often summarized as “voluntary versus forced movement,” but that shortcut is imperfect. The decisive question is not whether the creature wanted to move. It is whether the movement used the creature’s movement, action, or reaction.
Entering Reach and Moving Within Reach
The normal trigger is leaving reach. Entering an enemy’s reach does not trigger a standard opportunity attack, and moving from one space to another while remaining within the same reach does not trigger one either.
A special feature can replace or add a trigger. For example, Polearm Master can create an attack when a creature enters the reach of a qualifying weapon. That is the feat’s rule, not part of the general opportunity-attack procedure.
Reach Determines Where the Trigger Happens
Most creatures have a 5-foot reach, so an adjacent enemy usually provokes when it tries to move beyond that distance. A creature or attack with longer reach can change the point at which the enemy leaves reach.
The opportunity attack happens before the provoking creature crosses that boundary. This timing matters for abilities that reduce speed, move the target, or impose another effect on a hit.
Example: Leaving a 5-Foot Reach
A fighter stands adjacent to an orc. The orc moves from 5 feet away to 10 feet away without Disengaging. Just before the orc leaves the fighter’s 5-foot reach, the fighter can spend a reaction to make one melee attack. After the attack resolves, the orc continues moving unless an effect stops it.
Disengage, Teleportation, and Forced Movement
The Disengage action prevents your movement from provoking opportunity attacks for the rest of that turn. It does not make you invisible, increase your speed, or protect you from reactions with different triggers.
Teleportation does not provoke because it is not movement through the intervening spaces. Likewise, falling past a creature or being hurled away by an explosion does not provoke under the general rule because that movement did not use the moved creature’s movement, action, or reaction.
You Only Have One Reaction
An opportunity attack consumes your reaction. Once you take it, you normally cannot use another reaction until the start of your next turn. That may mean choosing between an opportunity attack, a readied reaction, shield, counterspell, or another reactive feature.
Taking the Ready action does not force you to use its prepared reaction. If a different trigger occurs first, you can spend the reaction on an opportunity attack instead, but the readied action is then unavailable because the reaction has been spent.
Can You Cast a Spell as an Opportunity Attack?
Not normally. The general rule grants one melee attack; it does not grant the Cast a Spell action or change a spell’s casting time. Even a spell that makes a melee spell attack must first be cast unless another feature says otherwise.
The 2014 War Caster feat is a specific exception. When a creature’s movement provokes an opportunity attack from you, the feat can let you use your reaction to cast a qualifying spell at that creature instead of making the normal opportunity attack.
Opportunity Attacks: 2014 vs. 2024 Rules
The core timing remains familiar in 2024, but the trigger is written more explicitly. The 2024 rule triggers when a creature you can see leaves your reach using its action, Bonus Action, Reaction, or one of its speeds. The reaction then makes one melee attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike.
The 2014 rule instead refers to a hostile creature moving out of your reach and grants one melee attack, followed by separate language excluding teleportation and movement that does not use the creature’s movement, action, or reaction. When using this article at a 2014 table, use the 2014 wording throughout the main guide.
Opportunity Attack FAQ
Does standing up from prone provoke an opportunity attack?
No. Standing spends movement, but the creature does not leave your reach merely by standing.
Does being shoved out of reach provoke?
No. A shove moves the target without the target using its own movement, action, or reaction.
Can you make more than one opportunity attack in a round?
Usually no, because each one costs a reaction and you regain your reaction at the start of your turn. A feature that grants another reaction could change that result.
Can an invisible creature provoke an opportunity attack?
The 2014 trigger requires you to see the creature. If you cannot see it, you cannot make the opportunity attack through the general rule.